Harriet Tubman

Born enslaved around 1822 on Maryland's Eastern Shore, Harriet Tubman spent her childhood checking muskrat traps, hauling timber, and laboring in fields and forests — work that, without her knowing it yet, was teaching her the landscape she would later use to escape. In 1849 she fled alone to Pennsylvania, but freedom without her family felt incomplete, so over the next decade she returned to Maryland roughly thirteen times, guiding about seventy enslaved people north to new lives.

During the Civil War she served the Union Army as a nurse, scout, and spy, and in 1863 she guided an armed raid on the Combahee River that freed more than 700 enslaved people. She eventually settled in Auburn, New York, where she worshipped for 22 years at the Thompson Memorial A.M.E. Zion Church and, in her later years, fulfilled a lifelong goal by opening a home for elderly and poor African Americans. She died having spent her final decades fighting for suffrage as well.

Key contributions

• Guided approximately 70 enslaved people to freedom over about ten years of return trips into Maryland.
• Served the Union Army as a nurse, scout, and armed spy during the Civil War.
• Led the 1863 Combahee River raid, which freed more than 700 enslaved people.
• Founded the Harriet Tubman Home for the Aged in Auburn, New York, caring for elderly and impoverished Black residents.

Context

Tubman came of age in a Maryland economy still built on slavery even as free Black communities grew around it, and the informal transportation network known as the Underground Railroad depended on people willing to risk recapture to move others to safety. Her Civil War service also placed her at the center of one of the war's few major operations planned and led with direct input from a formerly enslaved woman.

In their spirit: Every path she carved out led someone else home.

About this set

Tubman's card is one of six in Set 1A — First Flame Daughters, part of the Lineage: Origin Fire digital postcard collection. First Flame Daughters gathers women whose public courage and leadership lit the way for the movements that followed.

Shop the First Flame Daughters set or get the Complete Collection (all 12 cards).

Sources: National Park Service — Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad National Historical Park; Harriet Tubman National Historical Park.